My Chess Career, Part III, by Jose R. Capablanca + Road to 2000 FIDE #1
"...and as one by one I mowed them down without the loss of a single game my superiority became apparent."
First I want to welcome all the new people following the newsletter after I announced my project with publishing ‘My Chess Career’ in newsletter format. The newsletter now has passed 900 subscribers!
I want to continually improve the newsletter and in order to create a rhythm and structure, I have decided that it will be sent out every Tuesday from now on.
The structure of the newsletter will be:
Road to 2000 (focused on my own training, recommended chess materials, videos from my YouTube channel)
My Chess Career (republication of Capablanca’s ‘My Chess Career’)
The Post Mortem (analysis of the game from ‘My Chess Career’)
Book projects (updates on projects if I have any)
Enjoy!
"...and as one by one I mowed them down without the loss of a single game my superiority became apparent." — Capablanca
Road to 2000 FIDE #1
Today I’m rated 1852 FIDE after 62 rated games. I want to believe that if I could play more tournament games my rating would also go up.
However I haven’t played any OTB games since the end of last year, where I gained 40.2 points. I’m searching for a weekend tournament that fits into my family schedule, not an easy task. There is a tournament at the end of March, but that is colliding with my kids’ gymnastics show. A true dilemma.
To not get rusty I have joined the Lichess4545 mentioned in earlier newsletters. My current score is 3.5/5 with a 2223 Lichess performance rating.
The last game I played was not my best and at different stages in the game, I missed a tactic or my opponent’s plan. I recorded a short recap after the game if you want to see what went wrong.
Should I have played on in the end?
If you want to know more about my chess journey so far check out my interview on the Perpetual Podcast or my interview on the 64: A Chess Podcast.
My Chess Career, Part III, by Jose R. Capablanca
CHAPTER III
The Years 1906 - 1908.
After two years, in the course of which I had done a great deal of physical sport, I left the University and dedicated most of my time to chess. During those two years I played many a serious game, mostly in summer, against the strongest players of the Manhattan Chess Club, and as one by one I mowed them down without the loss of a single game my superiority became apparent. From that period I take the following games, with the notes I wrote at the time.
GAME No. 3.
Rob. Raubitscheck1 vs. J. R. Capablanca, 0-1
Link to Lichess study
Date: September 24., 1906.
Opening: King’s Gambit.
1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. h4
5… h6 6. d4 Nc6 7. c3 d6 8. O-O Qe7 9. Qb3 Nd8 10. hxg5
In this way White gains a pawn, but permits Black to work up a terrific attack. 10... hxg5 11. Qb5+ Bd7 12. Qxg5 Bf6 13. Qxf4 Ne6 14. Bxe6 Bxe6 15. e5 dxe5
16. Nxe5
16. dxe5 would have been better.
16... O-O-O 17. Na3 Rh4 18. Qg3 Bxe5 19. Qxe5 Rd5 20. Qg7 Rg4
21. Qh7 Nf6 22. Qh8+ Rd8 23. Qxf6
23… Rdg8 24. Rf2
If 24. Qxe7 Rxg2+ 25. Kh1 Bd5 and mate follows in a few moves.
24... Rxg2+ 25. Kf1 Bc4+ 26. Nxc4 Rg1#
The Post Mortem
This concludes the third game of the book. After each game, I will collect interesting insights by collecting other resources on the games and highlight any computer insights in the annotations.
An interesting moment in the game occurs after the move 9… Nd8. The move overprotects the f7-square that is attacked by the Q+B battery. I made a poll on Twitter and people seem to split with a tendency to support Capa’s move.
There are several alternate moves to consider in this position. Here is some of them:
9… Nf6 is possible to play but after 10. hxg5 hxg5 11. Nxg5 Nh5 12. Nxf7 then you have to find Nxd4! to keep the advantage! Not that simple.
9... Bd7 is another possible move, but it leaves the b7-pawn up for free after 10. Qxb7 (10. hxg5? hxg5 11.Nxg5 Qxg5 12. Bxf7+ Ke7 Black is winning) Rb8 11. Qxc7 Rc8 12.Qb7 In this position Black can play either Na5 or g4. The position is pretty wild and maybe this was not for Capablanca’s taste?
Last move I will look on is 9… g4 that also go into a crazy position after 10.Nh2 f3 (11. gxf3 g3 12. Ng4 Qxh4 and White is done) (11. g3? Look at that poor Knight) 11. Nxg4 Bxg4 12. Qxb7 Rb8 13. Qxc6+ Bd7 14. Qxc7 Rc8 15.Bxf7+ Kxf7 16. Rxf3+ Nf6. After this long line of more or less forced moves we get to this position. The engine says -2.3, but it is rather complicated and to evaluate it from move 9 is hard.
I shared the position on Twitter to get an idea about what people would play, and even though it was split it seems like Nd8 is the true human move.
And when I look over the variations of the stronger computer lines I understand that Nd8 was a practical move to make, while the others would give a wild game.
To end the post mortem I have found a video covering the basics of the game, so if you want a quick walk-through check it out:
I hope you have enjoyed reading this week’s newsletter. Please give me some feedback about the new layout!
/ Martin
Great content as always Martin! I also like your diagrams - whoch software do you use? Greetings from Germany!